As widespread use of high-performance mobile terminals such as smartphones and tablet PCs adds to mobile data traffic congestion, cellular networks more seriously suffer from capacity shortages entailing a network load problem, which is predicted to develop into still heavier network load.
Radio communication technologies such as code division multiple access (CDMA) and global system for mobile communications (GSM) can maintain seamless communication even while a mobile terminal is in motion with the use of a cell-based switching known as handoff. In contrast, Wi-Fi does not guarantee the cell-based switching but only communication in a stationary state at a specific place, and the communication speed geometrically decreases as the mobile terminal moves faster. For this reason, if the mobile terminal leaves a Wi-Fi zone while uploading or downloading large-capacity content in real time in a Wi-Fi network, communication link is disconnected thereby fail to transmit data. Therefore, when transmitting a large amount of content with a mobile terminal in motion, there is a need to make an active use of the Wi-Fi or such networks with relatively high data rate and lower cost together with cellular networks without a data transmission failure in order to increase the overall radio network efficiency.
To this end, Korean patent application number KR10-2009-0120495, entitled “Transmission Delay System of Data in Cellular Networks,” discloses an enhancement of the overall cellular network transmission efficiency by allowing a transmission delay for non-real-time data.
Mobile terminals may inter-work with different types of access networks due to the mobility of the mobile terminal users. It is well known that mobile terminal users show a periodic tendency on a daily basis or on a weekly basis towards, for example, traveling a predetermined route (commuting etc.) at a specific time slot or staying at a specific place (an office, school, home, etc.) during the day or at night. Accordingly, it is necessary to improve the overall radio network efficiency by e.g., distributing transmission data to all radio networks by using a data transmission rate or location information of an access network which is accessible by the user terminal while the user travels or stays at a place.